STAMFORD -- As a child in Manhattan, Gil Black grew up a few blocks away from the Polo Grounds where the New York Giants used to play their home games.

Black, who is black, remembers seeing the all-white team the Giants fielded and not thinking anything was amiss, assuming no black players were good enough to make the team.

It was not until he got a little older that he realized it wasn't that black players were not good enough, they were the wrong color for Major League Baseball, which excluded black players until 1947.

"I just thought black players weren't as good as the white players. Until I saw the black players," Black said. "I used to see the guys from the Negro Leagues when I got a little older, they would hang out at the pool halls. Then I saw them play baseball and it was like nothing else."

Black was at the UConn-Stamford campus Wednesday night participating as a guest lecturer in the Baseball in Society class, which is being offered for first time at UConn-Stamford this semester.

The class was created at the Storrs campus three years ago by Steve Wisensale and is taught in Stamford by Dr. Michael Ego, a full-time professor and part-time baseball fan.

The course focuses on how baseball and society have intersected over the past two centuries, and its effects on each domain.

The class has touched on subjects like women in baseball, Japanese-Americans playing baseball in World War II internment camps and, of course, the history of black players struggle for acceptance.

After growing up in Manhattan, Black moved to Stamford in 1951, playing three seasons for coach Paul Kuzco at Stamford High School from 1952-54 as well in a league in Belltown.

Black said he was 15-1 one year at Stamford and played so well he was asked to participate in a game in Hartford against the farm team from the Boston Braves.

Black won that game and, with the help of the Stamford Advocate sports editor at the time, earned a tryout with the Braves himself a year after high school.

"There must have been 100 people trying out," Black said. "I pitched two innings, didn't let up a hit. I got one at bat and hit a double but with so many people trying out I didn't make the team. They sent me to West Palm Beach to play with the minor league team."

Moving from Stamford to Florida in 1955 was a culture shock of the highest order.

As soon as he crossed the Mason-Dixon Line Black began seeing things he had never seen before.

"You ever seen four bathrooms at a gas station?" Black asked. "There were two white bathrooms and two black bathrooms. And when I played with the Clowns we would have to pull down the shades on the bus because if they saw bus full of black players, there would be trouble."

Black and his black teammates had to find separate restaurants and hotels and their manager at the time became annoyed, releasing Black and the other black players on the team.

Black caught on with the barnstorming Indianapolis Clowns -- part of the Negro League -- the following year, playing with guys like Clarence "Choo-choo" Coleman and "Nature Boy" Williams.

Black broke his wrist that season and never went back to playing.

Black now lives in Danbury, speaking at colleges and trade shows, talking about his life in the Negro Leagues.